by Jared Wheeler, Assumption, IL

AutoTrac Vision for tractors is a great new product for customers that sidedress and/or row crop cultivate.  John Deere previously released this for sprayers,  but it is now available for 7 and 8 family tractors, 30 series and newer.  The system works in row spacings from 20 up to 40-inch row crops in the early stages between 6 inches tall and 90% canopy.  The camera detects the color difference between the crop and soil and guides the tractor between the rows.

AutoTrac Vision Camera Mounted in front of the SF6000 Receiver

This new technology is ideal for customers that are in fields where they don’t have the original planting guidance lines.  It also works great for customers experiencing GPS drift or customers whose implement width doesn’t match the planter width.  We demoed this unit to a customer who planted with a 24 row planter using RTK signal and then came back and sidedressed with a 15 knife bar.  Even though the customer planted with RTK, the planter would sometimes pull to one side.  Also, the “guess” rows were occasionally off a couple inches and he would have to side shift his guidance line in the sidedress tractor to make up for it.  These additional steps are eliminated with the AutoTrac Vision system because the tractor is now automatically side-shifting for you by using the crop row as the reference point for guidance.

Gen 4 Monitor AutoTrac Vision Run Screen

I think this product would be especially beneficial for ag retailers that are custom applying because they usually don’t have the customers planting guidance lines to go off of when they are applying fertilizer. The camera will guide them through the field with ease. Contact us today for more info or to schedule a demo.

Sloan Support is written by the product support team at Sloan Implement, a 20 location John Deere dealer in Illinois and Wisconsin.  Learn more at www.sloans.com